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update: ANSWERS! personal revelations about NTSC vs TV resolutions?
Deusfaux
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
ok so in the midst of testing a couple LCD monitors (BenQ and Dell 24"s if anyone wants to know more about them in of themselves) against a variety of inputs and resolutions... I had the sudden realization that that NTSC is a 3:2 resolution signal.
not 4:3
This is confirmed by measuring with a ruler and finding the ratio of the output displayed on said LCD monitors when sending them xbox 360 (both standard and wide mode) and a dvd player (fullscreen menus) signal over composite connection
However, aren't all standand sized tvs (non HDTV/widescreens) manufactured to 4:3 dimensions?
I just measured my tv and it appears to indeed be at an aspect ratio of 4:3.
Thus, isn't everything we've been watching and playing for years and years actually not in the correct aspect and slightly squished on the sides/ stretched vertically?
That is, shouldnt there be, if the aspect is being maintained, black bars on the top and bottom? As 3:2 is wider than 4:3???!!
Arggg this is shattering my world view, somebody confirm my worst fears or set me straight with what's going on.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Video_Standards.svg
edit: Yes, I'm being facetious, but still yes I want to get to the bottom of things
not 4:3
This is confirmed by measuring with a ruler and finding the ratio of the output displayed on said LCD monitors when sending them xbox 360 (both standard and wide mode) and a dvd player (fullscreen menus) signal over composite connection
However, aren't all standand sized tvs (non HDTV/widescreens) manufactured to 4:3 dimensions?
I just measured my tv and it appears to indeed be at an aspect ratio of 4:3.
Thus, isn't everything we've been watching and playing for years and years actually not in the correct aspect and slightly squished on the sides/ stretched vertically?
That is, shouldnt there be, if the aspect is being maintained, black bars on the top and bottom? As 3:2 is wider than 4:3???!!
Arggg this is shattering my world view, somebody confirm my worst fears or set me straight with what's going on.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Video_Standards.svg
edit: Yes, I'm being facetious, but still yes I want to get to the bottom of things
Deusfaux on
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I physically measured the size of the display produced at 1:1 on the monitors of an NTSC signal. the display was a dvd movie from a standalone player, and the menus/games on an xbox 360.
it's at a ratio of 3:2.
Then same for my tv size
it's 4:3...
Something's missing
but the displays they are typically shown on, are 4:3.
do you not see the mismatch?
Nope, as broadcast resolutions are typically a lot lower than DVD resolutions, and fit nicely on a 4:3 screen. (I forget what NTSC, but it's something like 440x480
edit: I think you're confusing the fact that NTSC isn't restricted to a single resolution, e.g. NTSC VHS will be 320x480, NTSC SVCD is 480x480, NTSC broadcast is usually 440x480, whilst NTSC dvd is 720x480. However, all NTSC signals will use the 60hz refresh rate, colour coding info etc
-a dvd and a gaming system - they dont match the aspect of the tv. that's a problem.
i still have a pile of testing to do, but already that's made me question what other things I've viewed have been improper aspect. (other gaming systems? etc)
If you look at a non-widescreen DVD at its native resolution on a computer monitor it will look stretched horizontally. Because it is meant to be squished to 4:3.
This is almost as legendry as "where is the internet stored?"
This is not the issue, he's on about 4:3 DVDs/broadcasts not "Why do my widescreen dvds look squished/have bars?"
More to the point, if you've only noticed it now through research, and not through watching/playing stuff...does it really matter?
PSN: SirGrinchX
Oculus Rift: Sir_Grinch
That's not what he's saying, yo. I'm sure he's aware of the nature of letter boxing and other such formatting methods; he's just tripping out over whether or not a good deal of the media we've been watching for years was actually designed to be displayed at a 3:2 ratio and whether or not a signal meant to be stretched to show correctly on a 4:3 TV is still correctly proportioned when displayed pixel-for-pixel.
It's an interesting question, but I don't find it as earth-shattering as Deus seems to.
He's not on about broadcasts, as he's specifically said. He's only used a DVD of hitherto unknown aspect ratio, and an xbox 360 which for all we know might be set to widescreen mode.
edit: DVDs were designed for widescreen, if you output a DVD through a monitor and set it to 1:1 pixel mapping it'll display a widescreen image. I'm really not sure what logical disconnect you guys are working on, it really isn't an interesting question.
I just showed through real physical measurements that's not true. the 360 at the very least, outputs at 3:2 (and calls it NTSC)
to Mr Grinch on whether or not it really matters:
naw, I was being facetious in the OP
still, I'd like to know the truth about everything and why things work the way they do
So rook, you're not sure exactly what I've done, yet you're willing to make statements about me and my knowledge. that's bloody smart of you
for your information, I used the DVD menu and such (which should be a full 720x480), reported as NTSC and measured at 3:2, and the 360 was tested in both standard and widescreen modes (both reported as NTSC and both measured as 3:2 - only difference was stretching)
Yeah, basically any source will have it's Direct Aspect Ratio, and it's Pixel Aspect Ratio. E.g. a 720x480 DVD with either 4:3 or 16:9 info won't have a PAR of 1:1.
Willy Wonka didn't have to deal with this shit when he transferred chocolate bars to tv sets, if he had to send different ratio bars to different sets then no-one would have chocolate.
PSN: SirGrinchX
Oculus Rift: Sir_Grinch
er... the monitors are 1920x1200 (16:10) which doesnt matter anyways because they are set to 1:1 pixel mapping mode where they only display the exact number of pixels they are being sent (ie, a box in the center for anything less than 1920x1200)
Should explain everything everyone needs to know.
rook wasn't on about anything I was referring to until maybe those last 2 posts. guy above gets the problem too
So although the monitors see EVERY source attempted over composite and s-video as NTSC, which is a 3:2 signal (at least as far as they display), and so is 480i/p (720x480).... 1:1 would not actually be what we want.
These are the only signals really where we do NOT want to maintain the aspect of the signal being sent... specifically we want to change it to either a 4:3 or 16:9 aspect, to match the televisions they are expected to be shown on.
I understand normally it's the tv or whatever that due to a combination of overscan and resizing, gets the wider 3:2 aspect signal to actually display as a narrower 4:3 aspect signal -in the case of 4:3 sized tvs...
...If you tell the source device to turn to widescreen mode (dvd players, xbox 360, etc), the signal will still be sent in the same 3:2 aspect, but the actual IMAGERY within that signal is squished from the sides(too tall), because it is expected to be displayed on a widescreen (16:9) display, where it would be expanded outwards to compensate, and the images would then appear properly.
THUS, when NTSC/480i/p is left in 1:1 mode, REGARDLESS of the source device's setting to "standard/widescreen/letterbox/etc" it will always show a squished image one way or another.
Now I understand why these monitors need a mode to scale to 4:3 or 16:9 aspect, in ADDITION to 1:1/aspect/full modes, at least for NTSC and 480i/p signals.
(all other signals you generally want the aspect the signal comes in, so 1:1 and aspect handle them good)
So everything we've been watching should have been fine.